European Commission launches sustainable fashion competition

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jan 23, 2020

Submissions are now open for a new fashion competition from the European Commission, which will award a combined €150,000 to three early-stage sustainable fashion projects.

This year’s European Social Innovation Competition is focusing on responsible fashion, calling on entrants from across the EU Member States and Horizon 2020 associated countries to submit their ideas before 4 March.

The three winners will be announced in November, with each receiving an award of €50,000.

“European consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of their consumer habits. Building on Europe’s position at the forefront of global fashion, this year’s social innovation competition is looking for innovations that change the ways we produce, use and wear fashion and encourage more sustainability across the fashion industry,” said Slawomir Tokarski, director of innovation and advanced manufacturing at DG GROW.

The competition is looking for ideas that contribute to improving the sustainable production, use and consumption of fashion. According to the European Commission, EU citizens on average buy more than 12kgs of clothing a year -- this produces 195 million tonnes of CO2 and uses 46 billion cubic metres of water.

At the same time, more than 30% of clothes remain in wardrobes unused, and over half of garments end up in mixed household waste, which is why entrants are being encouraged to think of new ideas to improve the end-of-life stage of fashion products.

Solutions presented at the competition should be scalable at local, national or European levels.